North House Folk School

Before arriving at North House, while pressing a lilac-purple, cappuccino-filled mug to my chest, listening to its warmth, pondering my wants and wishes for growth, I was struck, full-force, with the intangible desire to know the world. All of it. 

On a concrete level, I was curious: what would it be like to see with eyes capable of discerning proportion, shadow, color, perspective, force, and light? What would it mean to distinguish the rhythmic notes and melodies of the world's whistling, buzzing, humming, and booming? Could I swallow the flavors of the consumable, savor the surfaces of the indigestible, and inhale the hues of the earth into my lungs? And how would I feel if I could truly feel it all—texture, temperature, movement, depth, stillness, and soul?

This desire itself is not astonishing. It is fundamentally human to be curious, to want competence, and to seek relationship. What is astonishing is the choice to seek material knowledge in an age focused on the digital—to recognize the value of a relationship with the physical world and our ability to create tangibility within it.

So, with all of this desire, behold! I became an intern at North House Folk School, where knowledge is a conversation between my hands and the earth. And here, I am finding intimacy with the world.

I am learning the knowledge of motion—of weaving, grabbing, twisting, pulling, prodding, compressing, expanding, and releasing. With every action of my hands, I find that we are all moving, all in transition, all forming, transforming, and decaying. My hands and the axe they hold; the wood being carved and the tree from which it came; the wooden floor supporting us; the timbered building containing us; and the sky and lake and forests beyond. We are all in perpetual movement, perpetual change. 

If I pause, close my eyes, and listen, I can almost feel my hands form, grow, wrinkle, and return to the earth. The axe forms and falls apart, the tree rises, collapses, becomes a spoon by my hands, and whittles away. The floor assembles, creaks, and falls; the building rises and falls, rises and falls, rises and falls. And suddenly, I awaken to look at Lake Superior. Together we inhale, exhale, form, and release.

We are all changing, and we are all changing one another. In this movement, I am finding that knowledge of the world is not some abstract competency of the senses, but a dynamic partnership of transformation. As my hands catalyze change—as the wood bends and the floor creaks—I must ask: what kind of partner do I want to be?

So I am learning how to be in relationship too—how to love and care, nourish and hold, give generously and freely, and love without possession. When these actions are ascribed to our partnership with the world, two brilliant things happen. 

First, the world is uplifted. Our landscape and creations are honored, transformed, loved, shared, and allowed to eventually return to the soil, just as we would hope for ourselves and for our kin.

Second, we are uplifted. When I am making, my mind quiets, and all attention flows to the creation I am altering. The world and I become intertwined, and my definition of self and selflessness blurs. I wonder, if all my attention lies in the world instead of within, where is my true self? Am I my body, or the creation, or both? Either way, what a gift it is to be intertwined with the earth! In that space of time, in that act of service—in fully giving myself and my energy to the uplifting of another being—I am nurtured. We uplift another, and in return, we are uplifted.

This is an ancient knowledge, a knowing of motion and relationship. An education of problem-solving, oral traditions, and treating the environment and our bodies as teachers. I cannot say where this way of knowing will lead. All I can say is, I feel the change. 

I fall asleep feeling things in my hands now—grainy wooden handles, steadfast fibers, and metal that sucks the heat out of my fingertips. Sometimes, my body knows things before my mind does, finding solutions before my brain has even processed problems. My attention spends more time in the world than in my mind. And when I look deep into the depths of the landscape, our creations, or my friends' eyes, I see cycles of source, transformation, and renewal. I see the transformed, the transformers, and the transition we are all in.

Every day, I watch people come here to grow closer to themselves and to the world. I witness a flow of learners and makers through this beautiful crossroads meant to nourish, transform, and release. What a gift to see my dreams sprout to fruition, and to do so in a community of people desiring the same relationship to their hands and their landscapes. 

Thank you Lake Superior, friends, hands, body, and heart, for these gifts of knowledge and growth. Thank you world, for nourishing the changing and for the continuous opportunity to become.